


Scrambled Eggs at 1 a.m.

by firstdegreefangirl



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Cooking, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Done in one sitting, Established Relationship, F/M, Late at Night, Singing, The Author Regrets Nothing, but early on, it's 3:30 a.m., well; one thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26337634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstdegreefangirl/pseuds/firstdegreefangirl
Summary: The first "meal" Lucy cooks in Tim's kitchen is late-night scrambled eggs and toast.But that couldn't matter less. What matters is that she's cookinganythingin his kitchen.
Relationships: Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Comments: 9
Kudos: 138





	Scrambled Eggs at 1 a.m.

**Author's Note:**

> So I scrambled some eggs at 12:30 this morning, and along the way, this fell together in my head. It's now just shy of 3:45 a.m. Wrote, edited and now published all in one go. Any mistakes are my own, blamed on that I should have been in bed two hours ago. 
> 
> Enjoy!  
> xoxo

Lucy sighs, tossing the washcloth she’s holding in the general direction of Tim’s bathroom. She dries her fingers on the comforter and folds herself against Tim’s side, resting her head on his bare chest. He snores lightly as she settles in, and she rolls her eyes when she cranes her neck to see that he’s fallen asleep. 

It makes sense, between the clock blinking 12:30 a.m. on the nightstand, and the evening she and Tim shared tonight. He’d driven her home after work – to his house, where he’d cooked dinner for her. They’d shared the dishes, hips bumping in front of the sink, then she’d pulled him into the bedroom to … express her gratitude. 

Twice. 

So she’s not surprised that Tim is passed out halfway on top of the rumpled covers. If she’s honest, she’s not going to be far behind him, her eyelids growing heavy as she runs her fingers along Tim’s side. His arm wraps around her shoulders, protecting her even in his sleep, and his breath hitches again. 

Lucy smiles, settling into the embrace and idly trying to remember if she’s got a change of clothes in her work bag. She’s pretty sure she does, but before she can be completely sure, her stomach gurgles loudly. It’s not enough to wake Tim, but she knows she’s not going to make it all the way to breakfast without something to eat. Unless she wants to lay awake and be hungry all night. 

That’s not a viable option, though; Lucy knows she’s not a morning person, even when she has gotten a full night of sleep. And she hasn’t been dating Tim long enough for him to see her sleep-deprived _and_ hungry at 7 a.m. 

That’s a milestone for at least their three-month anniversary, hopefully even later than that. 

So she has to get up and find something to eat. In Tim’s kitchen. Which he keeps fully stocked, but sorely lacking in snack foods. 

(“If I need to eat, I’ll have a meal,” he’d said one time when she offered him some trail mis in the shop. “If I’m not hungry enough for a meal, I’ll wait until I am.” 

Truly, she’ll never understand him. But that doesn't matter, because she likes him anyway.) 

Lucy knows Tim is a light sleeper. He’ll stir at almost any sort of noise or movement, even if he goes right back to sleep. Still, she’s pretty sure she’ll be able to slide out of his arms and get out to the kitchen without disturbing him too much. 

She moves slowly, inching across the bed and freezing every time Tim so much as breathes. It feels a little bit like sneaking out, and she’s hit with a brief pang of guilt when she makes it to the door and checks over her shoulder to be sure he’s still sleeping. 

But she’ll be back, she reminds herself. She’s not going far, just to the kitchen. And when she gets back, she’ll be ready to drift to sleep beside him. 

So she pulls the door closed quietly, leaving it cracked just far enough that the latch won’t click and disturb Tim. The path to the kitchen is clear, even in the dark, just a handful of steps before she’s rolling up to her tip toes and flicking on the light over the stove. It's not very bright, but it’ll be enough for her to pull something together without illuminating the entire house. Besides, the refrigerator has its own light, and it’s not like she’s in the mood for anything with much prep work at almost 1 in the morning. 

The fridge is full, shelves packed with fresh ingredients. There’s a bag of carrots; maybe she could find a veggie peeler and eat a couple? But upon further inspection, there’s no ranch dressing, and her interest wanes. A plastic dish of leftover rice pilaf catches her eye, but the microwave runs loudly enough that it would almost certainly wake Tim up. So she’s limited to things she can eat cold, or fix on the stove. 

Then, her gaze lands on a brown cardboard carton. There are plenty of eggs left in the dozen, so she’s not going to polish off anything Tim might have had plans for. The butter is sitting right next to them, practically begging her to make scrambled eggs. So she reaches for them, cradles two eggs carefully in one hand and lifts the butter out with the other. 

There’s still a little skillet on the stove, air drying where they’d left it after washing the gravy residue out of the bottom earlier. The spatula is on the drainboard, and she knows which cabinet the plates and bowls are in. 

What she can’t find is a whisk, but she knows a fork works almost as well. She beats them gently, careful not to let the fork clink too loudly against the sides of the bowl, lest it act as a 1 a.m. dinner bell. While the butter melts in the pan, she rummages in Tim’s small pantry and comes up with two slices of bread, which she drops into the toaster on the counter. The eggs pour easily, with a quiet sizzle as they hit the pan. 

She reaches for the toaster, drops the lever as she starts humming to herself. It’s an old song, one she can’t remember the title of, or most of the lyrics. But she knows the chorus, can remember dozens of evenings in the kitchen growing up, listening to her mother singing as she sprinkled just the right amounts of things into the man effortlessly. 

Lucy hadn’t inherited the knack for eyeballed measurements, but she can hold her own in Tim's kitchen, stirring eggs while she sings her mother’s song. 

* * *

Tim stirs, unsurprised to find himself fading back into consciousness in the middle of the night. He rolls over, planning to go back to sleep, but Lucy’s side of the bed is empty. 

_Lucy’s side of the bed._ That realization, and how well the possession fits in his mind, is enough that he blinks in the darkness. His eyes adjust enough that he can pick out the sliver of light coming through the edges of the door where it’s cracked open. 

He knows they’d turned the light off before he let Lucy take him to bed, had known when he saw the look on her face that they wouldn’t be venturing out of the bedroom before morning. But there’s light out there now, and Tim pushes up to his elbows to listen. 

His gut instincts aren’t worried, tell him that everything is fine. He's got no reason not to trust that feeling, other than his own curiosity. Why Lucy would be out there, he doesn’t know. But he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t leave like this, sneaking out in the middle of the night with her phone still charging beside the bed. 

So he turns his attention to whatever he can pick up from the kitchen, a series of tiny pings _,_ like cutlery rattling against a plate. He could be wrong, but he swears he hears the pantry open and close, the toaster’s springs locking as it engages. 

Tim knows he isn’t mistaken though, when he hears Lucy start to sing. Her voice is distant enough that he can’t pick out the words, but he’d know her voice anywhere, easy for him to pick up after a year of listening to her mutter whatever song was stuck in her head while he drove them around the city. 

She’s singing in his kitchen. She’s cooking something, presumably, probably with toast. But she’s singing while she does it. Her voice is calming enough that he lays back down, folding one arm behind his head and sighing as he listens. 

It doesn’t matter what she’s cooking, the more he thinks about it. And it doesn't matter what she’s singing, either. 

It just matters that she’s comfortable enough to do both of those things, to sing and cook in his house, while he sleeps. They've only been dating a couple of months, but already, she’s making room for herself in his space. It's everything Tim hadn’t let himself hope to find again, the easy comfort of sharing his life with someone who matters to him. 

All Tim wants is for Lucy to feel like she can make herself at home with him, take up space in his bed, fix something to eat when she’s hungry. 

He hears a chair scoot across the floor, the telltale sounds of silverware clicking steadily against a plate. His eyes close, and he listens to the way she hums a few notes between her bites. 

Tim wants to be awake when she comes back to bed, but it’s a losing battle between the physical comfort of his bed, and the contentment that comes with knowing that Lucy is just down the hall, sharing her life with him. 

By the time she finishes eating and the door creaks open again, he’s fighting against the pull of sleep, just barely hanging onto consciousness. Still, it’s enough that he’s aware of the mattress dipping when Lucy crawls back in beside him. 

His arm is still folded behind his head, leaving room for Lucy to curl up against him again. Tim knows it’s her favorite way to sleep when she stays over, and if he’s honest with himself, he likes having her this close. She’s warm against his side, her presence a security he hadn’t known he’d missed. 

The movement is clumsy, exhaustion weighing his limbs down, but Tim wraps his arm around Lucy’s shoulder and turns his head enough to press a kiss to the top of her head. 

He rests his face in her hair for a moment, thinks about what kind of mess she might have made of his kitchen, then decides it doesn’t really matter. 

“Welcome back,” he murmurs into the dark room as he tips his head back against the pillow. Lucy hums, the vibrations tickling his chest. There aren’t any words to make out, but he knows what she’s getting at. “Yeah, just hope you're hungry for breakfast in the morning. I make a pretty mean pancake.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos lull me back to sleep like Lucy's singing voice.


End file.
